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Friday 20 January 2012

Because REAL domination isn't fun (addendum)

UNEXPECTED ADDENDUM:

Even without new draconian laws mentioned last post, the US government shut down the massive file sharing site Megaupload yesterday as part of "an investigation into copyright infringement".

BBC News story
Ars Technica story
Wikipedia article on MU

No warning to innocent users with files stored there; paid members of the site can't access or even delete their stored private files. I would honestly be very surprised if the FBI didn't have 'warrants' to look through people's private accounts in this case, too.

This just goes to show that accusations of something someone doesn't like (in this case music companies worried people were storing copyrighted material on Megaupload and sharing the links) can get other innocent peoples' rights stomped all over without recourse (i.e. those of all the millions of Megaupload users who used the service for legit reasons, such as off-site hard drive backup of personal data).

It also shows that 'private' file storage online using these services is neither safe nor assured. Some folks wonder why I'm not a fan at all of the whole "cloud based" (online) software and storage concept that so many seem to tout as "the future"... this is why!

I'm not talking about whether the founders of Megaupload willingly allowed copyrighted content to be shared using their service. I'm talking about the fact that this takedown affects the innocent as much as the alleged-guilty. Imagine if this was Picasa or Google Docs being taken down without warning? That would be the end of all Blogger blogs. YouTube? Scary stuff indeed. Plus, isn't it a bit suspicious that of all the file-sharing services out there, the one hit this hard is the one that previously angered the RIAA over an unrelated matter?

Aren't we supposed to be more fearful and distrustful of criminal piracy and hacker groups than our own authorities and corporations?

CLOSING COMMENTS:

I know these last two posts have been somewhat 'off-topic', but this is such an important issue for everyone online, particularly those of us in a potentially-targetable, oft-misunderstood and occasionally demonized 'minority' (non-vanilla) group like being a 'spanko'.

It's too important to risk being in the dark on these sorts of issues, and if my silly little spanking art blog can bring them to the attention of just one reader who was previously unaware of what was going on, it's worth it. This hits home personally for me, because a big part of why I quit Yahoo was that it only took one complaint from someone and my whole account could be shut down... it happened to me at least twice, and both times as a result of content not even posted by me!

Finally, as my own contribution to the fight against censorship and information suppression (and due to several requests and emails), today I restored my controversial Halloween post to its pre-self-censored version. Enjoy in all it's non-'politically correct' glory!

We now resume our regular spanking-themed posts!

4 comments:

  1. It's quite frightening, really - the intrusive might of a superpower state riding roughshod over innocent online activity at the behest of corporations. And you're right that niche do-it-ourselves communities like this one have cause to keep looking over our shoulders. Colin

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  2. Good job, Banjo!

    Things are looking a bit more hopeful here in the USA, but even with a total defeat of these two bills I do think they will be back. The idiotic content companies here need to suffer some actual boycotts or some other loss of revenue or prestige before they will rethink this.

    Even though I'm not a Christian, I write for a website of a friend on mostly non-religious topics. My post about this stuff is :
    http://traditionalchristianity.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/sopa-soaps/


    Clarence

    ReplyDelete
  3. The matter is serious indeed. In Europe we are currently experiencing strange actions of goverments to pass new legislations on related matter without any public consultations and to keep it in secret. I hope the public outrage it triggered will stop them.

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  4. @Robertc

    Yes, we are currently experiencing the same thing in Canada - only the excuse is child pornography. They think that we're all so stupid that they can just say, "The children, the children..." and everybody will immediately give up all their rights and accept martial law. Fortunately, the government is in huge trouble over it at as we speak. God, this is weird talking politics on a nice site like this. I promise to do it very, very rarely, indeed.

    -Welcome back Banjo-

    ReplyDelete